Language in the news

Is the good work of interpreters ever recognised? What do Anfillo, Bung and Hoti have in common? Will learning a language contribute to healthy senior years? What is left after you've read the OED? So much to learn and so little time!

They're not as soft and cuddly as some iconic animals, but they are in just as much danger of extinction. We're talking about half of the 6,700 languages still spoken in the world today.

UNESCO on safeguarding endangered languages: "The 2003 Convention recognises the vital role of language in the expression and transmission of living heritage. All intangible cultural heritage domains - from knowledge about the universe to rituals, performing arts to handicrafts - depend on language for their day-to-day practice and inter-generational transmission." You can also check out the organisation's Atlas on Endangered Languages, a project under its Multilingualism in Cyberspace program.

A good story injects life into a topic: "Jogue, yipe, simoi are three short words for foods in Kim, a language in Sierra Leone that Tucker Childs has been trying, for the past three years, to write down, record and understand." Linguist's Preservation Kit has New Digital Tools from the NY Times.

And then there were new ones

"In In The Land of Invented Languages, author Arika Okrent tells the fascinating and highly entertaining history of man's enduring quest to build a better language. Peopled with charming eccentrics and exasperating megalomaniacs, the land of invented languages is a place where you can recite the Lord's Prayer in John Wilkins's Philosophical Language, say your wedding vows in Loglan, and read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Lojban... a must-have on the shelves of all word freaks, grammar geeks, and plain old language lovers."

"English is the language of science. So to what extent are researchers who are non-native English speakers at a disadvantage? Bonnie Lee La Madeleine talks to scientists hailing from Japan to Germany." Nature offers an interesting read under the boilerplate title Lost in Translation.

Health benefits

It could be that language specialists should start honing their skills earlier and never stop working. People with superior language aptitude developed early in life may be less prone to Alzheimer's disease later. Read more from the BBC: Language 'predicts dementia risk'.

"There's a disease spreading across Britain. It's in our schools, on our streets and in our places of work." ARSC (Australian Raised Sentences Condition) is spreading... laughter. View the excellent video Going Up at the End of Sentences.

From beginning to end "59 million consecutive words - the equivalent of one John Grisham novel per day" as Nicholson Baker points out in his review in the New York Times.

Shyam K. Sriram thinks, "Though he may not admit it, Shea must possess some variation of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), for it quickly becomes apparent that no one but Shea could have read the entire OED because no one else could have done the book so much justice."

Sriram's article in PopMatters also lists some of his favorite finds, such as apricity, petrabund and petrichor (all of which will get flagged by your spellchecker). We know you really want to read this book, so don't come up with an accismus.

The people who brought you the OED are know giving us the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, "covering more than 920,000 words and meanings from Old English to the present day based, on the Oxford English Dictionary." The soon-to-be-released 2-volume work numbers 4448 pages, or only 12 per day for the next year. You can find a review on the BBC website: Roll over Roget.

Translation, Manipulation and Interpreting

"Translation is manipulation! What does it mean? How can it be? Can it be trusted? And what about its sister activity interpreting? The book provides answers to all these questions and more. It investigates the allegedly manipulative side of translation and interpreting, and offers an overview of scholarly and practitioner stances on translation and interpreting as manipulation as well as a fine-grained typology of translational manipulation with examples. This study would appeal to translators, interpreters, scholars, and students alike."

Interpreter Stories

About this section

Interpreter Stories is published by AIIC, and its aim will be to provide news and views on all aspects of the conference industry as they affect conference interpreters. But it's not just for interpreters. It is meant to be a resource and a forum for anyone involved in the language profession, whether as a practitioner, a client, a student, or a teacher…